February 19, 2010

Earlier this week, while playing volleyball, one of my teammates commented on how I had “little fat.” Though this could be easily read as a compliment, the actual context of this statement painted as not particularly positive. She pretty much meant “while you don’t have to wash yourself with a rag on a stick, you still got some flub!” Seeing as I have the self body image of a 13-year-old girl training for the catwalk, this comment sent me into a downward spiral of eating only a carrot for dinner and trying to fit a trip to the gym whenever possible. A move that strangely enough only shot my self-esteem downward: the orange-shirted staff convinced me to a “health fitness challenge” which involved five tests meant to measure my in-shapeness. Save for the “how many sit-ups can you do in a minute” challenge (37!), I managed to be entirely lackluster. Not the most uplifting week.

So it seems like an entirely idiotic venture to eat the latest Big America burger available at the Hades of cuisine that is Japanese McDonald’s. But damn it, I’ve already eaten half of this absurd promotions offerings. Might as well tough it out and face the gastric consequences later. The Hawaii Burger actually comes with one of my least favorite foodstuffs prominently stuffed between two buns – an egg. One of those McDonald’s “eggs” which look vaguely like a Styrofoam disc at that. The world clearly wanted me to not eat this burger…but I carried on foolishly to the recently remodeled franchise near my town’s lone bowling alley.

I wouldn't blame you if you thought I weighed 500 pounds

I’m glad I did: the Hawaii Burger shines as the best Big America entry yet. Though the sauce slathered on the burger comes advertised as “a special gravy,” it tastes like a tangy barbecue sauce. A really good tangy barbecue sauce. The egg seems intimidating at first glance but keep in mind the great truth of McDonald’s “eggs:” they taste like absolutely nothing, and get absolutely lost when mixed with other flavors. Eating the egg by itself isn’t recommended, but within the confines of the Hawaii Burger it’s OK. More importantly, it serves a valuable function in the burger, something that was sunk the New York Burger. The egg works as a “third bun,” like the Texas Burger had, corralling the sauce into one place and reducing messiness. It’s great…for a McDonald’s burger. With an egg on it. That probably made the number of years before they lop off my legs a little bit smaller.

Nom Nom Nom

Post-script: I did go to the gym immediately after eating this. Please, gym equipment, help me atone.

The Winter Olympics In Japan

I see lots of people think NBC have completely botched the 2010 Winter Olympics. The large problem, based on what I’ve read, seems to be the network has resorted to showing recorded events and showing a low variety of sports despite having a bucket-ful of channels to broadcast them from. Or maybe people are still just angry about Conan. Anyway, maybe NBC could learn a lesson from Japan’s coverage. Instead of spreading things across a wide selection of channels (though I don’t have a satellite so maybe they do), the station showing the games (NHK) just uses one channel. They show events their audience cares about (read: something with a Japanese athlete in it) live and then show a replay of said events again in the afternoon when the games finish for the day. Though this leads to a lack of variety in events (no hockey, way too much figure skating), it allows all the events most important to the viewers be seen live. Not perfect, but at least they don’t screw up despite having all the resources necessary to be good.

Predictably, Japan’s all about the Olympics right now. The news features the latest from Vancouver, with figure skating being the biggest draw. The Japanese skater won the bronze, which guarantees he’ll be pretty ever-present for the next three months or so. People here seem to be into the games as well – at the local gym, they have several TVs devoted to showing only the Olympics. They come with kinda-cute signs stating their purpose.

They so happy

One model house in Nabari has especially gotten into the Olympic spirit by displaying a Canadian flag (along with a multitude of other country’s flags) outside. Here’s a terrible picture of it!